took you long enough
by sleepless-royalty
Summary: She doesn't realize. Until she's too late. - lucy-centric. nalu-ish. no bashing.


**I attempted angst. I failed.**

* * *

" _She doesn't realize. Until she's too late. - lucy-centric. nalu-ish. no bashing."_

* * *

" _I fell in love."_

" _So you did."_

" _I did."_

" _May I ask with whom?"_

 _He smiled, "Secret."_

* * *

She comes back from her first solo job, exhausted and glowing, because it is her first mission all by herself with only her spirits and her own strength and her own determination. No Erza, no Gray - no Natsu. She returns to see an unchanged guild. She returns to see saddened green eyes hidden behind a forcefully vociferous smile and a white-haired girl with a pixie, beaming at the warm, tan hands wrapped around her own porcelain, delicate ones.

She falters at the sight, unused to intimate touching between her partner and a girl that w _as not her,_ but she stops. He is him and she is she, and she has no control over his actions and his emotions and his choices.

So she beams at the happy couple, saying a false "congratulations" (though she doesn't quite know why it's false), and berating the pinkette for not waiting for her to come back before confessing.

(She isn't sure if she would've been able to handle the sight, for some reason, but she quietly keeps this fact to herself.)

He sends her a tight smile, saying in a stiff voice that he "could not wait."

* * *

" _Luce, how do you know you're in love?"_

" _Well, you might want to be around that person all the time. You might find them attractive, and you might find yourself loving every little thing about them, despite how weird the thing is. You might get butterflies in your stomach, and you might just want to kiss them senseless all the time."_

" _How do you know this?"_

" _I love love."_

* * *

He asks her about where to take her on a date.

The blonde replies, "That's your job to know."

He rolls his eyes, ruffling her blonde hair, and lowly saying that he wasn't good at romantic relationships - that she was his best friend and she knew everything about everything.

She says, "Do what you love. And she'll love it, too."

He asks, "How do you know?"

She replies, "Because if you're in love, you'll glow and brighten, simply by feeding off of each other's love." She answers before he can ask, "I love love."

He smiles gently, a look in his eyes that she can't quite place, "I know."

She doesn't know why her heart clenches so painfully, a couple hours later, as she's writing by the sakura tree he uprooted for her all those years ago when she sees him and the white-haired girl with the annoyingly lovely pixie cut, running down the road giggling and guffawing without a care in the world.

* * *

" _Hey, Natsu, you look pale."_

" _I think I'm sick."_

" _Sick? …Are you sure? Are you okay? What makes you think that?"_

" _Well, um, my stomach keeps doing this weird flip-flop. And I keep looking at this one person, as if it's all her fault."_

" _Her?"_

" _Yeah. And I dunno. I just really like being around her, y'know? But whenever I am, I feel like I have a swarm of bees in my stomach. And I kind of wanna kiss her. But it's weird."_

" _..."_

" _Luce?"_

" _You're perfectly fine, Natsu. Don't worry."_

* * *

"Luce, I think I'm sick."

She rolls her eyes and assures him that he is most certainly not, that if he could run rampant and destroy half the guild while all the while laughing maniacally at the misfortune of his so-called "rivals," then he was most certainly not sick.

He smacks her gently on the shoulder and lingers there, allowing her to experience his warm touch and mentally berate Lisanna for not telling her how wonderful his attentions, as innocent as they may be, were.

He says that he's getting this weird belly flop whenever he's around this _special person_. He wants to hug her and kiss her and be around her all the time.

(She knows it's Lisanna and she knows he's just sparing her feelings. Why her feelings must be spared, she doesn't know.)

She says, with a small, wistful smile, "You're in love."

He gives her a strange look, as if "no, that can't possibly be it." Then he leaves, and she's left to her thoughts.

 _He's in love,_ she thinks, her heart clenching painfully. _And it's not with me._

* * *

" _Hey, Natsu."_

" _Yeah?"_

" _Since Lisanna is back now...are you going to stop being partners with me?"_

" _What? Of course not, Luce! You're stuck with me."_

" _I wouldn't have it any other way."_

* * *

She shows up at his wedding as a bridesmaid - maid of honor to be specific, hair flowing loosely around her shoulders like golden waves undulating around the tan, bare skin. She's dressed in a strapless lavender dress that fell just below her knees, though it was most certainly not her color, complemented the bride quite perfectly, who's now-longer hair was pinned and tucked to resemble the pixie cut she sported all those years ago.

The bride's dress is a design of Mira's - absolutely gaudy, way over the top, and totally not Lisanna's style, both she and Lucy have agreed - but it made the older Strauss happy and all be damned if any part of a wedding not be pleasing to the fearsome Mirajane Strauss. There's layers upon layers of lace, flowers covering every inch of the thick skirt, and a bodice squeezing the younger girl so tight, one can visibly see her breathing quicken in a desperate attempt for air. Sweat dribbles down the young woman's forehead from the heat of the dress and the long white veil.

"I look like crap," she mutters.

"You do," Lucy says, noting that not even the tacky dress, although foreign to see on the youngest Strauss, suited her perfectly, emphasizing her curves and the blueness of her eyes. "But you don't."

"You look lovely."

"Thank you, but I'm not the one getting married here."

"It doesn't matter. You should be up there."

Lucy's breath hitched, "Why would you say that?"

"He loves you."

"He loves _you_."

"No. No, he doesn't."

"He _chose_ you."

"He chose wrong."

"He still chose. The fact that he chose you is…"

A silence enveloped them.

"I love him," Lisanna whispers. "He doesn't love me."

"He does," Lucy reassures her. "He _does_."

"Not in the right way."

The music starts.

"Lucy, it's time. I don't think I can do this."

"Yes, you can. He _loves_ you."

The blonde is out the door by the time the white-haired girl mumbles, tears falling from her crystalline blue eyes, "He doesn't."

* * *

" _You're really pretty, you know that?"_

" _...Thanks, Natsu. That's really sweet. Especially coming from you.:_

" _That doesn't make you any less of a weirdo, though."_

" _Oh, GET OUT OF MY HOUSE!"_

* * *

"You're gorgeous," he whispers hoarsely to the bride.

She can't help but be bitter that she had only ever been "pretty" in his eyes. His emerald eyes trail from his bride, falling to the floor until they reached the blonde. His eyes met hers.

"Absolutely beautiful," he says.

Lucy's heart drops into her gut.

Lisanna fingers her bouquet, picking at the leaves and staring at the petals, as though she's wishing they would fall off and tell her the answer to her problems. The priest - Makarov in a hat twice the size of his body and a cape dragging on the floor - begins to speak. Lucy misses the vows; she's crying too hard, watching two of her dearest friends getting married and -

Erza and Levy think she's crying happy tears, smiling at her and showing off their own sets of water trickling down their sun-kissed cheeks.

Lucy covers her mouth, ashamed of not being happy for the pair, but the crocodile tears kept rolling.

"Speak now, or forever hold your peace," Makarov says.

Natsu looks at her expectantly, as does Lisanna. Her fingers twitch; she places a foot forward. Mira's astounded look is enough to send her back, rubbing her calf as though it was merely itching. The ceremony proceeds, but the bride and the groom look almost…

...disappointed.

* * *

" _Why'd you choose me to be your partner?"_

" _Because you're so nice!"_

" _But a lot of people in the guild are nice. And stronger than me."_

" … _Your version of nice is different, and you're plenty powerful."_

" _I'm a celestial mage. We're not exactly renowned for being part of powerful guilds like Fairy Tail."_

" _Then we'll change that."_

* * *

It physically hurts for her to recite her speech, as Natsu's best friend and as Lisanna's maid of honor. She plasters on a cheery smile, hoping no one noticed the smudged the mascara.

"The first time I heard about Lisanna," she smiles. "I was seventeen years old. Mira and I were cleaning out the library, and she told me how Happy was born."

(Happy yells a cheerful, "Aye!" causing her friends to laugh, but Natsu's eyes never leave hers.)

"I was curious as to why she was no longer there, simply because she and Natsu were obviously so close." _Not as close as he is to me,_ she thinks bitingly, immediately regretting the thought. "Then I found out. When she came back, you should've seen how happy she was. I was surprised. A random Mira lookalike suddenly appears, tied up by a tiny cat, and jumps on my best friend and his cat. It was heartwarming, to say the least, like two star-crossed lovers reuniting. (I have to say, though, that when she met up with her siblings again, I cried even more.)"

She continues, choking up, "It was only a matter of time before the two went at it again. I'm still bitter over the fact that Natsu didn't even wait until I came back from my first solo mission, but it was worth it. Coming back to see these two so happy, that is.

"It seems cliche, having the childhood friends come back together after such a long time. But it's a sweet story, and only further proves that they're meant to b - "

Here, she succumbs to her sobs, but her speech is over anyways. Erza claps, Gray whistles, and Levy smiles, thinking the tears are happy.

Natsu's eyes never leave hers as she stumbles out of the room.

* * *

" _You're an idiot."_

" _Thanks."_

" _Seriously? Why the hell would you take me on an S-class mission? I've barely been here for a week!"_

"' _Cause we're partners, aren't we? And partners go on jobs together."_

" _I'm your partner?"_

" _Of course! You don't think I go one jobs with just anyone, right?"_

" _...Thank you."_

* * *

It's well after an hour when he walks out of the reception to sit next to her crying self, curled up against a wall in an alleyway by the cathedral. She doesn't mind, really. It's his wedding day after all. She was the first of the speeches, too, and heaven knows how many important friends the boy has in his life.

"What's wrong, Luce?" he asks, wrapping an arm around her shoulder and pulling her in.

"I'm," she sobs into his jacket. "I'm in love with you."

He's silent, staring at her with a look in his eyes that she can't quite perceive.

"Took you long enough."

She looks up at him slowly, eyes red and puffy, stomach flopping and her heart dropping from her chest, "What?"

He beams at her softly, with that annoying fanged grin, tears slipping from the corners of his eyes, "I wish you didn't figure it out so late."

Her jaw clenches, and she looks down. She's ashamed - ashamed of loving a married man, no matter the fact that he's her best friend. Her golden bangs cover her russet brown eyes, shadowing her face in a saddened, almost sinister fashion.

"One last dance?" she questions, her heart squeezing in guilt for being so selfish.

He stands up abruptly; she takes it as a "no." She folds her hands on her lap, ready to spend the rest of the night sulking in the direction of the guild hall straight across from town, but her grabs her arm and pulls her in.

"Where are you taking me?" she asks tearfully.

"You said you wanted to have one last dance with me, right?" he refutes playfully.

She stares at him, but a small grin overtakes her face, "...Yes."

"Then let's go!" he cheers, smirking at her nostalgic expression.

(She cries in the middle of the dance floor, but the memory is nonetheless bittersweet.)

* * *

" _Where are you taking me?"_

" _You said you wanted to join Fairy Tail, right?"_

" _Huh?"_

" _So let's go!"_

* * *

 **Fin.**

 **If you hadn't noticed already, the italics were going down backward while the regular text was going forward.**

 **This was so sad to write; I love Lucy!**

 **Not proofread or beta-ed. Constructive criticism welcome!**

 **Hope you enjoyed!**


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